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There are things Arthur doesn’t tell John. He doesn’t lie – exactly. They’ve promised each other that there won’t be any lies between them. But there are things Arthur doesn’t say, things that he keeps to himself, things like: I miss you, sometimes I wish we were still in my body together, I wish that I could hear your voice in my head instead of across a room, I don’t care that you can’t exactly come out in public like – that, and I don’t miss other people at all, but sometimes I look at you and flinch because I don’t know that you’re you and I’m fucking tired of waiting for the day that it doesn’t take me a few seconds to remember.
Arthur doesn’t ask if this is how Uncle looked, too: if his horns were as long and golden as John’s, if his fur was as thick and black, if his hooves were so massive, if his claws were so sharp. Did he look more human than you, Arthur doesn’t ask.
Arthur doesn’t tell John that he thinks his floppy ears are fucking ridiculous – and adorable, and that he wouldn’t mind stroking them.
Arthur doesn’t say: I thought Kayne would give you a human body.
And he especially doesn’t add: I still want you. Even like this, even now. I still want all the things I thought about doing when I thought that Kayne would make you a man and I don’t know what that says about me at all.
Arthur doesn’t tell John any of that. It’s easier that way, isn’t it? It has to be.
*
Their life after everything is near enough to idyllic. The cabin they’ve made their home is big enough for two – even accounting for John’s size. The surrounding woodland is beautiful – and private. Arthur comes to enjoy waking up to the sound of birdsong outside the window, the scent of wood burning in the fireplace, John’s body a mass of fur wrapped around him from behind and his breath a series of slow, hot bursts against the back of Arthur’s neck.
In the beginning, they’d tried sleeping apart. It didn’t take. They couldn’t even make it through one night. Arthur had been staring up at the ceiling for hours before there was a creak near the bedroom door and he looked over, heartbeat ratcheting at the massive, goat-man shadow standing there, the light from behind him in the living room making his horns shine. The relief came next, so strong that Arthur would have swayed in place were he not already lying down.
“Arthur,” John said then, and it was ridiculous how bashful someone so big could sound, “do you think…”
“Bed’s big enough,” Arthur rasped.
And it wasn’t true, exactly, but Arthur didn’t mind having to press close together to make sure they both fit.
They’ve figured out the best positions since then, of course. Night after night of sleeping together, it would be hard not to. John inevitably ends up curled around Arthur or Arthur ends up splayed over John and both are as enjoyable as the other.
Arthur doesn’t tell John he likes the feeling of fur against his skin, that he enjoys the animal scent of him, that sometimes when John is holding him and his massive paw is pressed to Arthur’s stomach, the tips of his claws dig in just so and it feels –
Good.
Better than good.
Arthur doesn’t tell John that he likes that he looks more animal than man, that there’s something distinct and beautiful about it, or that nearly every time he has a moment alone he has his hand wrapped around his cock, jerking himself off as he imagines John fucking him like he’s just another animal, too. He doesn’t tell John how perverse he feels for it or – the worst truth – how the perversion only makes him want it more.
And when Arthur wakes up hard and aching and it would be so easy to just rut against John until he finds relief – Arthur doesn’t say anything about that, either.
*
“Do you find me repulsive?” John asks once.
And Arthur laughs. He doesn’t mean to. Really, he doesn’t. It’s just –
It would be so much easier if he did.
*
Arthur expects it to pass and that’s perhaps the biggest lie of all – one he tells himself rather than John and repeatedly at that. He tells himself that he’ll get over this – attraction. One day he’ll wake up and he won’t feel that head to toe flush of heat at the press of John’s body against him. One day he’ll have his hand on his cock and he’ll be thinking about some woman or some man with the same flesh as him, rounded ears and human features. One day he won’t watch John when he bathes like he’s a peeping tom, his mouth going dry at how John’s fur clings to him when it’s dripping wet. One day Arthur won’t think about what it would be like to sit in John’s lap, sink down on his cock and hold on to John’s horns as John ruts up into him, using him, grunting in his ear all the while.
But the days pass and the weeks turn and the colder it gets, the closer he and John curl together at night, and it only becomes harder and harder for Arthur to keep lying.
*
The morning Arthur gives in isn’t special in any way.
Consciousness returns to him slowly. It’s sweltering in the bed between the heat of the fireplace, John beneath him and the covers over them both. There’s a muggy sort of awareness over Arthur’s mind, too hot for him to think reasonably and just hot enough that his still half sleeping mind thinks it’s a wonderful idea to shed the clothes from his body. Arthur struggles his way out of his shirt and then out of his trousers, the one going over the side of the bed and the other kicked down to the foot. His bare skin against John’s fur isn’t exactly any cooler, but it’s far more pleasant. Enough that Arthur finds himself drifting off again.
The next time he wakes up, he’s hard and aching and there are claws dragging lazily up and down the bare skin of his back, leaving delicious tingles in their wake. Arthur moans and shifts his hips before he can stop himself – and it’s only then that he becomes aware of the matching hardness pressing at his belly, the size of it, the wetness he can feel slicking across his skin.
Arthur inhales sharply, getting a lungful of John’s scent, and John makes a rumbling sound from beneath him before his claws drag back down Arthurs back – and then lower to Arthur’s hip where it takes everything in Arthur not to squirm with need.
“You’re feeling touchy this morning,” Arthur manages to get out.
John lets out a heavy breath, heat ghosting down Arthur’s head, before his paw slides down the remaining difference and he grasps Arthur’s ass, claws just digging in –
And Arthur can’t stop his whimper then. He can’t stop the sound or the roll of his hips or the way his hand grasps at the fur on John’s chest and squeezes.
“You’re the one who took off your clothes,” John replies, but if there’s a rebuke in the words, Arthur can’t find it.
“Yes, well.” Arthur swallows hard and allows himself another thrust forward, rubbing his cock against the hot, heavy press of John’s thigh. He revels in how it makes John’s grip on his ass tighten, at how those claws dig in a little deeper, near enough to pierce. “I didn’t think it would be such a temptation.”
“I didn’t think I would be,” John says.
And there’s something in his tone that makes Arthur’s heart twist, something wondrous and full of longing.
He decides right about then that they’re both idiots.
“We can talk about it,” Arthur offers. He doesn’t want to talk, however. Not right now. Not –
“Later,” John rumbles.
Arthur barely has the time to feel the relief that crashes over him before John’s other hand is on his body and his mind is occupied with more pleasurable feelings altogether.